GEARnet organizes a Webinar/Events Series for the New Year, which will be open to all members of the Research Centers and Independent Research Institutes of the network! Stay tuned for details in this space. In the meantime, here is some indication of what is comming up next: 

• March 2025: Neurodiversity

• April 2025: Health & Safety at Work

• June 2025: Parents, Carers and Work

8 March, 2025

Read GEARnet's Press Release for this year's International Women's Day! Devoted to all members of the Equity and Anti-Discrimination Committees that insist volunteering their personal time and efforts for a better research environment for all, including also some first gender disagregated data on the staff of Greek Research Centers and Independent Research Institutes! 

On Wednesday, January 29 2025, GEARNET organised a Webinar on Digital Accessibility. The Webinar was hosted and coordinated by Dr. Magda Chatzaki, from FORTH. The keynote speaker was Dr Stavroula Ntoa, a Principle Research at the Computer Science Institute of FORTH. The seminar was entitled: "Digital accessibility in products and services for people with disabilities".  The talk was a highly informative presentation of digital accessibility issues and the international status quo! The Seminar is available to watch at GEARNET's Youtube Channel,  here!

On Monday, December 2, 2024, GEARnet organized its third onsite workshop at NCSR "Demokritos". The workshop focussed on preventing and combating gender-based violence. The highlight of the workshop was a hands-on training event on gender-based violence within research organizations, led by Ms. Vasia Madesi, in the framework of the GenderSAFE project. The training involved familiarisation of the participants with guidelines, tools and best practices in addressing gender-based violence, while particular emphasis was also placed on  the development of targeted policies and effective protocols for reporting and managing incidents of gender-based violence and harassment in research organizations.

On Wednesday, 11 September 2024, the GEARnet President participated in a round table discussion on Female Leadership in Research Organizations. The Hellenic Foundation for Research & Innovation organized the event as part of its official collaboration with the  US National Endowment for Humanities. The discussion particularly focused on the reasons behind the low participation of women in leadership positions. Among others, work-life balance challenges have been indicated as pivotal in women's decisions even to consider applying for a leadership position, which indicates the tight interconnection between these two themes.

On Wednesday, October 16 2024, international day of Personal Pronouns, GEARNET organised its 2nd Webinar on Gender-Sensitive Language. The Webinar was hosted and coordinated by Dr. Anastasia Tsagkarakou and Dr. Alexandra Sintori from ELGO-DIMITRA. The keynote speaker was Prof. Dimitra Kogkidou, Aristototle University of Thessaloniki and Coordinator of the DEI network of Greek Universities.  The seminar was entitled: " Going beyond language sexism - a priority for a modern and inclusive society" and actually sparked a long discussion among the participants! The Seminar is available to watch at GEARNET's Youtube Channel,  here! 

On Monday, 01 July 2024, the Athena Research Center hosted the second GEARnet, onsite workshop! Discussions and presentations focused mostly around gender (and other types of) violence at the workplace and the development of a common Action Plan by all members of the network. The day closed with an interactive  session for planning the Network activities and objectives for the next academic year (2024-2025)!

On Monday, May 13, 2024, GEARNET organised its first webinar on Gender Sensitive Language. The Webinar was hosted and coordinated by Dr. Anastasia Tsagkarakou and Dr. Alexandra Sintori from ELGO-DIMITRA. The keynote speaker was Dr Angeliki Fotopoulou, Computational Linguist, ILSP/Athena R.C. Term clarification and examples formed the main part of the talk that aimed at setting a common understanding of the basic issues involved in this topic! Read more here! 

GEARnet has now its own Zenodo community In this space, network members gather material for publication or restricted use (for members-only), such as articles, presentations, technical reports, white papers, as well as templates and exemplaries for D.E.I related surveys, action plans and protocols.

On Friday, 30 June 2023, the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens hosted the first GEARnet, onsite workshop! The day was filled with presentations from all working groups of the Network, as well as panel discussions, interactive sessions among groups and plans for the next steps!

GEARnet has contributed to article 58, of the new law 5019/2023 which renders -for the first time- the formulation of Gender Equality and Anti-discrimination Committees in greek Research Centers and Institutes compulsory. The law describes the composition of the committees as well as their duties!